Development of an international harmonization scheme for salt water fish toxicity tests

The proceeding deterioration of the marine environment demonstrates the need and the urgency to take appropriate measures. To obtain significant results all the practical efforts made so far must be sustained by national and international conventions and wherever necessary even by more strict regulations. One of the major objectives of the administrative and scientific authorities involved is to establish an harmonized scheme for toxicity testing on marine organisms under controlled laboratory conditions, in order to make a meaningful preliminary hazard assessment for the marine environment. In this respect, and to screen out those substances, which show an immediate adverse effect, a simple, cheap and convenient toxicity test on saltwater fish is urgently needed. The state of the art in this field is, however, not developed as far as it is for freshwater species, for which standards already exist: i.e. ISO, EPA, ASTM, OECD. This paper attempts to find out which simple methods are more or leas commonly used, and if there is a trend in the development of an international harmonized toxicity- testing procedure for saltwater fishes